Call for the Saint

shuffled forward, peering between forearms lifted before him, his body almost doubled over so that his elbows guarded his belly while his gloves shielded his face. No legally vulnerable square inch of his body was unprotected. He came forward steadily, inch by inch, making no attempt to lead or feint, merely coming forward with the massive low-gear irresistibility of a large tank, peering intently, cautiously -almost fearfully, Simon thought-between the bulging bar­riers of his ham-sized arms.

The Saint moved around him in a leisurely half-circle, every muscle, every nerve completely at ease, relaxed, and co-ordi­nated. He was oblivious of the crowd now, studying his prob­lem with almost academic detachment, the latent lightning in his fists perfectly controlled. He couldn't help feeling the same guarded wonder that he knew Torpedo Smith, and for that matter all of the Angel's opponents, must have felt at the apparent impotence of the Angel's attack right up to the mo­ment of the blow that sent them on the way to oblivion. He thought to himself: Nothing happens the first round . . . nothing ever happens the first round. . . . The crux of his problem, he felt sure, was what the Angel did to open his victims for the inevitable knockout later on. . . .

Bilinski, apparently growing tired of following Simon around the ring, stopped in the center and remained there, crouched, merely revolving to follow the Saint's lackadaisical circumvolutions about him.

The cash customers began to shake the stadium with the drumming of their stamping feet in the familiar demand for action. A demand, Simon thought, which was no more than fair. . . . He stepped in, threw a left that cracked like a whip­lash, against the Angel's fleshy forearms, and crossed with a downward-driving right that strove to crash past into the mas­sive belly beyond. But the Angel instinctively brought his arms closer together so that the Saint's gloved fist thudded into their bone-centered barrier.

Bilinski, visibly startled by the numbing shock of the blow, even though he did catch it on his guard, flung his arms about the Saint in an octopuslike clutch, sagging slightly in order to let his overwhelming weight smother his opponent's efforts to strike again; but Simon, familiar with the old strength-sapping trick, merely relaxed with him and waited for the referee to come between them.

From her seat at ringside, Patricia Holm, her blond hair wild with excitement, her hands gripping the arms of her chair, pleaded with tense anxiety: 'Watch him, Simon, watch him! Be careful!'

'He'd better watch while he can,' Inspector Fernack gibed sardonically. He leaned back in his seat beside her and yelled: 'All right, you Angel, shake him loose and let him have it! Give him one for me!'

The referee was still battling to break the Angel's drown­ing-man grip when the bell ended the round.

As he walked to his corner, the Saint noticed that there were no boos from the crowd over the inaction of that opening round. There was merely a more intense current of anticipatory excitement, as though everyone felt that they were about to witness a phenomenon of nature which, while it might be de­layed somewhat, would take place as ineluctably as a predicted eclipse of the sun. ...

The betting, Simon knew, was not on whether or not he'd be knocked out, but rather precisely when and how that cataclysmic event would occur.

Hoppy wiped nonexistent perspiration from the Saint's brow.

'Dat foist round wuz slow motion, boss,' he rasped encour­agingly. 'Howja feel?'

The Saint smiled coolly.

'Fine. Where's Whitey?'

'He forgot de towels.' Hoppy thrust the mouth of the water bottle at Simon's lips. 'Take a drink?'

The Saint leaned back and turned his face away slightly as the water poured out of the uptilted bottle and slopped over his neck and chest.

'Chees, boss!' Hoppy peered at the Saint's face. 'Dijja get any?'

'All I need. Wipe my face.'

Hoppy reached about vaguely for a nonexistent towel, seized the Saint's dressing gown draped over the edge of the ring apron, and used it instead to mop the moisture from Simon's face and body.

'Hoppy,' said the Saint in a low voice, as his faithful disci­ple started to fan him with the robe. 'Hoppy, listen.'

'Yeah, boss?'

'This is important,' Simon said quickly. 'Keep the cork in that water bottle-understand ? Don't let anyone try to spill the water that's left in it. Do you get that, Hoppy?'

Hoppy nodded foggily.

'Yeah, b-but--'

'Hold on to that bottle!' Simon said urgently, obsessed with the nightmare problem of impressing a course of action on Mr. Uniatz's reflexes beyond any possibility of confusion. 'Don't let it get away from you. I want it after the fight. Put it in your pocket-or in that robe-and keep it under your arm. Don't drink out of it, whatever you do. If anyone tries to spill it or break it, grab him and hold on to him! Is that clear?'

'Sure, but I don't get it, boss. Why--'

The warning whistle blew its shrill alarm, and Simon sprang to his feet as Hoppy ducked out of the ring, taking the stool with him.

The bell clanged and the Saint moved out. ... He could only hope that his hunch was right, that he had really pene­trated the mundane secret of Doc Spangler's psycho-hypnotic technique. If he guessed wrong, there might still be catastro­phic surprises in store. He was answering a gambit of whose ultimate denouement he was not at all certain.

Now the Saint opened up. He darted in with the effortless speed and cold-eyed ferocity of a jungle cat, his lithe body moving in a fierce harmony of scientific destruction, his shoul­ders flinging a shower of straight javelinlike blows, striving to penetrate the fortress wall of wrists, arms, and gloves that guarded the Angel's head. . . .

Bilinski began to give ground, crouching lower and lower beneath the onslaught. Suddenly the Saint changed his mode of attack, his fists wringing up from beneath in a series of whiplash uppercuts. One of them managed to catch the Angel on his nominal forehead, jarring his head back momentarily. Almost simultaneously with the first blow, another crashed through the Angel's guard and left the little bulb of nose a bloody splotch.

Bilinski began to give ground faster, the first glimmer of real fear in his dull little eyes. But still he refused to retaliate; he went on catching the Saint's blows on his arms, gloves, shoulders, elbows, rolling instinctively with every one that he caught, like the battle-conditioned veteran, he indisputably was. And as he felt the ropes touch his back, he leaned against them and bounded forward again, taking advantage of their spring, hurling his gross tonnage against the Saint and flinging his arms about him once again, shuffling around so that the Saint's back was to the ropes instead. Inexorably he pushed Simon backwards against the rubberized strands.

Pat was on her feet, jumping up and down.

'Get away from him, Simon!' she screamed. 'Get away from him!'

'Aw, sit down!' Fernack blasted at her. He cupped his hands about his mouth and yelled: 'Knock him kicking, Angel! Hit him one for me! For Fernack!'

Pat turned on him furiously.

'Yes,' she shouted, 'for poor feeble Fernack!' and brought a flailing hand down on the top of the detective's derby, jam­ming it down over his eyes.

A localized area of laughter was swallowed in a sudden earthquake as the crowd surged to its feet en masse.

The Saint was obviously in trouble. He was still against the ropes, even as Torpedo Smith had been, shaking his head as though trying to clear it, as the Angel, close up to him, pumped short deliberate blows into his body. They lacked con­cussive snap but were nevertheless sickening with the mon­strous weight that lay behind them. The Angel seemed to be trying to shake the Saint loose to give himself room for a con­clusive blow. That he would succeed seemed a matter of a very brief time. The Saint was already staggering and apparently holding on blindly.

In the Saint's corner, Hoppy Uniatz, his face tortured into a mask of pleading horror, leaned over the bottom strand of the ropes, his clenched fists pounding the canvas desperately.

'Boss!' he begged, his raucous voice screeching with the in­tensity of his emotion. 'Boss, get away from dem ropes. Don't let him crowd ya! Boss!'

Patricia's eyes filled with frightened tears.

'Simon!' she sobbed. 'Get away, get away!'

And strange things were happening to Inspector John Henry Fernack-things which, in abstract theory, he would have hooted at as fantastically impossible. Faced with the reality of his old adversary's imminent downfall, a